When Josh was born I was completely out of my comfort zone. I constantly moaned about the lack of freedom, the worst thing to me was the fact I couldn't get a whole night of sleep without having to get up for a feed. It seems laughable now, looking back I was so naive to think having children is just something people do with ease. I am glad Josh was a nightmare for 6 months, he had colic, he never slept and to add to it whenever I left a room he screamed. I personally think he knew what was to come and was preparing us for it! That said, after 6 months he was a little delight, my little blonde bombshell.
Once Georgia came home from the hospital everything changed. Now our whole existence revolved around this little bundle.
We were lucky that Georgia was a good weight when she was born (8lb 8oz) so we now had the task of not only maintaining that weight but getting her to increase it to be big enough for the heart surgery. I am ashamed to admit that this took over my every waking moment. She had to be fed every 3 hours, she had to have her medications too, on top of that i had to daily change the tape that was holding her feeding tube to her face as she was a monkey and kept trying to pull it out.
She started vomiting 2 weeks after we got her home. I took her up to our local hospital to be looked at in case of any problems with her bowel. Our lovely consultant, Dr Whaley, told us this was going to be a frequent occurrence with Georgia. She was struggling with digesting her food due to her heart, she was getting tired and the only way for her to feel better was to get rid of the food she didn't want. I took for granted the fact that Josh easily digested food, poor Georgia had a feeding tube so she couldn't just stop drinking. We tried lots of things, small and often, a lot but further apart, break in the night, break in the day, but all of it had the same result, vomit. I tried her with bottles to see if she would drink until she was full but she was not interested. I tried feeding her in the dark, in the light, with every teat you can imagine, different bottles, different milk, flavoured milk, i even tied hair bobbles round the bottle to see if that would keep her interested but with no joy. It was so frustrating.
One night rob was doing the 2am feed when he saw she had vomited out her feeding tube, I know it sounds gross but I didn't even think of the yukkiness of the situation, my first thought was 'it's 2am, she has no tube and I have to feed her'. By this point my anxiety grew if I couldn't feed her on time, I was obsessed. I didn't want to take her out of bed up to the hospital so I phoned Matt. Matt is luckily a paediatric nurse and bless him he said he would be straight round. I picked Georgia up out of her moses basket and realised the tube was only out a small way so I took a deep breath in and fed it back up her nose, then I got a syringe and checked the tube, sure enough it was in her tummy...............relief. I then phoned Matt and apologised for waking him up and said I had solved it!
Georgia's digestion was so slow that the tiny amount of milk that I would feed her would mostly still be in her tummy when we came to feed her 3 hours later. My washing machine was working overtime to clean all the tea towels and muslins that we had to cover her in to catch the sick!
Its strange when I write it down I remember how horrifying it was. I never wanted to leave her in a room on her own in fear of her being sick and choking. I hated sleeping, when I woke up my stomach would be turning as I looked into her moses basket to see if she had survived the night. Most nights I just sat watching her in fear. I wished she could tell me what was happening, I felt so helpless.
On a happier note I should explain the wonderful Matt to you. My uncle, although more like a brother, as I said is a paediatric nurse. I thank Georgia for bringing Matt so much closer to us. I can never thank him enough for the times he put her tube back in or came round when I was freaking out, just his presence was reassuring. He walked up and down our living room for hours with her when she was screaming in pain, trying to soothe her and give me a break. So there you have it, Matt is an angel and has been there without fail every time we needed him, and still is to this day!
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